


Home for Christmas

by NephilimEQ



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Christmas Eve, Christmas Fluff, Established Relationship, Fluff, Light Angst, M/M, McShep - Freeform, Rodney's an amazing dad, Smut, So is John, Sweet/Hot, married, they have a son
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-22
Updated: 2018-12-22
Packaged: 2019-09-24 13:42:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17101676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NephilimEQ/pseuds/NephilimEQ
Summary: This was a JOY to write! Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!!





	Home for Christmas

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Saraste](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saraste/gifts).



** Home for Christmas **

“Daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy!” yelled Joey from down the hall, the sound of loud, thundering footsteps following. Rodney braced himself for impact…and was not surprised when a small body slammed into his legs and two strong arms wrapped around his legs. “DADDY!”

“Yes, Joey, I can hear you, you don’t have to yell as if the house is on fire.”

His son looked up at him with a toothy grin and said, “Pops said Santa is coming on Christmas!”

Rodney bit his lip and tried not to snap out that believing that a man could travel the entire globe in one night was absolutely ridiculous, and instead managed to nod and say through slightly gritted teeth, “Yep. He sure is, buddy. Now, have you decided to write your list?”

Joey looked up at him with his brown eyes and said, “Yeah! And I’m gonna write a whole letter, too! Pops is helping me!”

Of _course_ , he was.

“That sounds great, kiddo. How about I help you with it, too?”

Shaking his head, he said, “Nah. Pops is gonna do it! He said we could eat cookies, too, while we do it!”

Rodney grimaced and said, “He did, did he?”

He was going to _kill_ him. John knew that he hated it whenever he gave Joey any kind of sugar. The kid got on such a sugar high, that he was next to _impossible_ to settle down for hours afterwards, lending itself to some absolutely miserable nights. Rodney was already formulating a very _persuasive_ argument to use against his husband. The man knew better than to push his buttons, especially when it came to Joey. However, John was still a great dad.

Joey ran ahead of him into the kitchen, where John was finishing up dinner.

He dropped the ladle in his hand just as Joey ran into his arms and he swept him up in a hug.

“Heya, kiddo!”

Despite being upset with him, Rodney smiled at seeing their son in his husband’s arms. Yeah, okay, maybe he wasn’t as upset any more. The sight of the usually stoic colonel smiling like an idiot while holding their son and showing him how to add oregano into tomato sauce seemed to melt away most of the irritation he had about the whole “Santa” thing.

…but still.

“Hey, is dinner almost ready?” Rodney asked, keeping his tone light, and John nodded.

“Yep. Ten minutes to go and we’ll be sitting down to spaghetti and meatballs, the best dinner food ever,” he said with a smug smile on his lips as Joey nodded enthusiastically, agreeing with his pops’ statement. Of course, he was smug about it. It was the one dish that Rodney couldn’t cook, and he took great pride in rubbing it in his face whenever he could get away with it…like, when he had their son in his arms as a shield to protect him from the usual punch on the shoulder.

Instead of letting his anger get the best of him, he touched his fingers to John’s lower back and said into his ear, “You and I need to talk later,” and then moved to grab glasses from the cupboard, pulling out plates and utensils, as well, deciding that setting the table might be a better use of his frustration.

Fifteen minutes later, Rodney tried to act annoyed as Joey launched a meatball at his husband’s head but couldn’t help a grin from rising to his lips.

“Hey!” John protested, wiping sauce off his face, “Sneak attack and entirely unprovoked! How is that fair?”

Joey took a bite of the spaghetti hanging off his fork and said with his mouth full, “War isn’t fair,” and John rolled his eyes at hearing his own words parroted back at him by their precocious five-year-old son. He glared at Rodney, expecting him to say something, but Rodney shook his head and said, “You’re on your own, here. _You’re_ the one that taught him that, remember?”

He took a stab at one of his own meatballs and stared John down, who ignored him and replied, “Well, maybe war isn’t fair…but retaliation is!”

And with that, he launched his own meatball across the table, landing it on the edge of the plate closest to Joey, who let out a loud shout of laughter as spaghetti sauce splattered on his face and picked it up with his fingers and lobbed it back at his pops, while Rodney rolled his eyes and muttered, “Of course I’m raising two children, why should I have thought any differently?”

At that, John looked over at him and said, “After the lego incident, I don’t think we’ve been able to firmly establish who the pot and kettle are in this relationship,” and Rodney flushed.

Right. Glass houses. Stones and all that.

Brushing it to the side, he let them have their small food fight, and then helped them clean it up afterwards, insisting that John take a shower in the master bath to clean off the stains, while Rodney got Joey into the tub. As Joey splashed, Rodney sat on the lid of the toilet and scanned through e-mails on his tablet, while still keeping a close eye.

Joey suddenly looked up at him and innocently asked, “When are you going to write _your_ letter to Santa, daddy?”

He smiled indulgently at his son.

“Parents don’t get to write letters, kiddo. We just make sure our kids are on the nice list.” He reached out and pulled down the toy jet from the ledge. “Hey, you haven’t played with this one in a while, Joey. Why not? I thought it was your favorite…”

He shrugged and continued playing with the outlandishly inaccurate tugboat.

“Not anymore. I like this one, now.”

At hearing the petulant tone in his voice, Rodney knew better than to push it. Joey had his pops’ temperament and the scientist knew that pushing a subject would only make him clam up even further, so he said nothing more on the subject, instead tapping his tablet and saying, “Hey, so I’ve got a big math problem here and I need some help on it. Wanna take a look?”

Joey’s eyes lit up and he nodded, so Rodney pulled him out of the tub, handed him a towel, and as the boy hurriedly dried himself off, missing whole sections of his body and ignoring his hair entirely, Rodney pulled up the picture onto the screen. As soon as he was done, Rodney retrieved the discarded towel, finished drying him off, and then wrapped him up and put him in his lap and showed him the star chart, and smiled when he saw the boy’s eyes light up.

“See this?” Rodney pointed, and Joey nodded. “This is where the Milky Way is, where pops and I are from. And here,” he zoomed out, “Is where you’re from, where we live right now. The Pegasus cluster. Now, what I need your help with is figuring out how many stargates it would take to fit between _this_ star and… _this_ one. We need to know because since we figured out how to make more stargates, we wanna have an easier way for you to visit your Aunt Jeannie and your cousins. Here’s how many lightyears we have and how much power we need for each one to go for _this_ many lightyears…”

He showed Joey the numbers and the kid’s eyes lit up, just like his father’s. God, he was so much like John.

The boy’s nose scrunched up and he looked at the diagram for a long time and pushed numbers on the screen with his still slightly chubby fingers.

After a minute or two, during which he dried off the rest of the way, he looked up at his dad and pointed at a number on the tablet, “This one. That many, daddy!” Rodney looked at the number and smiled. He did the division right.

“Good job, kiddo! High five!”

They slapped a high five, and then Rodney ushered him to the sink, where he brushed his teeth and then he chased him down the hall to his room, where he tucked him into bed after reading him the next chapter of Treasure Island. Joey fell asleep just at the tail end of the chapter, and Rodney let out a soft sigh as he tucked him under his orange dinosaur sheets, and then quietly made his way down to the master bedroom, where he found John half naked and half asleep on the bed, his hair still damp, only having gotten into a clean pair of sweatpants and nothing else.

“Hey,” he grumbled out from where his face was smushed into the pillow, “Joey asleep?”

“Out like a light,” Rodney softly replied, crawling over his husband’s body. “He’s really enjoying that book that Woolsey gave him.”

John smugly smiled.

“Of course, he is…he’s just like you, Rodney. Always looking for adventure and getting into trouble with that smart mind of his,” he drawled, and Rodney rolled his eyes and snorted, “Yeah, right! If anything, he takes after you, all math and mischief…”

John grunted.

“Yeah, okay, no argument here.”

Rodney then tugged at John’s shoulder and said, “Hey, I wasn’t kidding about earlier. We need to talk. C’mon, mister, get yourself up,” and John reluctantly let himself be manhandled into a sitting position, so that he had his back against the pillows, while Rodney sat at the end of the bed, one leg dangling over the edge, while the other was bent beneath him.

“John.”

“Rodney.”

He let out a frustrated sigh.

“So…you told Joey about Santa, I noticed,” he said lightly, and John’s eyebrow shot up.

“Well, yeah, he’s a kid, Rodney, and kids like Santa! I mean, we didn’t do much about it last year, but he deserves to have some part of a normal childhood Christmas, you know? A tree, a stocking, some presents _under_ the tree, with some Christmas morning pancakes, writing a letter to Santa…” His voice trailed off at seeing his husband’s expression and he rolled his eyes. “Oh, c’mon, Rodney! He’s a _kid!”_

And Rodney nodded and said emphatically, “Exactly! We shouldn’t be lying to him like this! Do you know how devastated he’ll be when he finds out he’s not real?”

John looked at him for a long moment…and then softly asked, “How old were you?”

Rodney deflated and didn’t even bother to try and hide it from him. John was able to read him too damn well after ten years of marriage.

“I was six. I went to school and told all my friends that I’d sent my letter to Santa and…well, everyone laughed at me and when I came home that day, I found out that we were going to be moving, so we wouldn’t be celebrating Christmas that year, and, well…it sort of ruined everything for me.”

At this, John leaned towards him and put a soft hand on his knee and asked in a concerned tone, “Is this why you always get so quiet around Christmas?” Rodney nodded. John gently squeezed his knee and said apologetically, “You know, you could have told me, and I wouldn’t have made such a big deal out of it. I just thought, you know, that Joey would have fun writing a letter to Santa…”

Rodney morosely nodded and then conceded, “Well, you’re not entirely wrong…”

John nodded, but said nothing, and for a long while they simply sat there in silence, both of them pondering the rest of their holiday.

Finally, Rodney broke the silence and asked, “So, uh, are Teyla and Ronon still coming? With Torren?”

John smiled and nodded, and replied with a lighter tone of voice, “Yeah, and they’re looking forward to it. Can you believe Torren is twelve, now? I mean, my god, that kid has grown up fast,” and Rodney smiled as well and said, “He’s a lot like his mother,” but John snorted and added, “Not according to Teyla. She says he’s taking after Ronon more every day now,” and Rodney rolled his eyes.

“God help that poor kid, growing up with two warrior parents,” and John chuckled.

“Yeah, well, at least Zelenka’s still coming, right?”

Rodney nodded and moved up the bed, tucking himself into his husband’s side and said, “Yeah, he is. With Jennifer,” and at that, John stiffened…and then looked down at Rodney in shock, and Rodney smirked and said blithely, “Oh, did I forget to mention that? They’ve been seeing each other for about six months now. They’ve been keeping it quiet, of course, but they’ve been dating. And apparently it’s been going remarkably well.”

“Huh.”

Amused by the lack of his husband’s response, he turned to his side and poked him in the ribs and said, “By the way, our son is doing brilliantly in multiplication and division right now. I gave him another math problem with the stargates,” John groaned, “And he solved them in five minutes! Like I said, he has _your_ brain…”

John turned his eyes to Rodney’s and jabbed, “You keep on trying to turn him into a prodigy and he’s not gonna get a childhood, Rodney! Do you really want that?”

He looked a bit surprised at that.

“Well…no, of course not, but…he has so much fun! I mean,” he enthused, rolling onto his stomach and turning eager eyes on his husband, “Have you seen how excited he gets when I tell him I have a new problem for him to solve? He lights up like it’s--”

“Christmas?”

Rodney rolled his eyes and said, “Well…yeah. He does. Joey loves math, just like his pops.” He put a hand over John’s ribs and then softly added, “I like seeing him like that,” to which John immediately replied, “You mean, like the way he looked when he said he was excited about writing a letter to Santa?”, and Rodney was the one who groaned.

“Oh, seriously? You’re gonna play _that_ card?” he whined and John grinned.

“Yep. I’m shameless, what can I say?”

“Well, _that’s_ certainly true. If you weren’t, we never would have gotten together.”

John hummed his agreement and put his hand over Rodney’s, and then tugged him closer so that Rodney was lying halfway on top of him. They stayed like that for a long while, just feeling each other and basking in the small moment, both of them knowing just how precious those moments were considering where they lived…but then it was broken when John’s comm buzzed to life on the side table. Rodney glared at it as he sat up and let his husband reach over and pick it up.

“Sheppard.”

Rodney didn’t hear what came after, but he saw John’s brow furrow slightly, and he knew that he wasn’t going to like the answer. After a minute or two of “Yeah” and “Sure”, he finally hung up and looked back at Rodney, an apology forming on his face before he could even say a word.

“They need you, don’t they?” he stated, more than asked, and John nodded.

“Yeah, they really do. Emergency situation, you know how it is. I told them they could only contact me in an _actual_ emergency and, well…looks like we’ve got one. One of the teams hasn’t been heard from in over two days. It’s about a ten-hour hike from the stargate to civilization on P2X-547, so they didn’t worry at first…but now they’ve missed two check-ins. Lorne’s on that team.”

Rodney swallowed.

“Then you should go get him back.”

John nodded.

“That’s the plan.” He got up from the bed and immediately dropped the sweatpants and walked naked to the dresser, pulling out his BDUs. Rodney watched him get ready and a faint smile came to his lips as he watched him strap on his thigh holster and then tighten the straps on his tac vest. He wasn’t going to deny it: that outfit got to him every time and was probably the reason why Rodney had fallen for him in the first place.

John grabbed his headset, putting it back on, and then leaned over and pressed a kiss to his husband’s lips, and muttered, “Dunno when I’ll be back. Try to make it before Christmas, babe,” and Rodney nodded…and then pulled him back in for a more fervent kiss, making a more lasting memory that would linger with him for longer than the light brush of lips.

They finally pulled apart and John said, “Tell Joey I’ll be back soon, okay?”

Rodney nodded.

“Of course.”

He left.

\--

The next morning, Christmas Eve, Rodney explained to Joey that pops was going to be gone for a little while to find Uncle Lorne, to which he’d immediately asked, “Why’s Uncle Lorne missing?”, and Rodney didn’t know how to answer. He fumbled for a moment, and then finally came up with, “Well, he went through the stargate and he didn’t come back when he was supposed to, which means he probably got lost when walking back. You know, like how when pops gets lost and won’t ask for directions? Like that.”

Joey seemed to take that as a good answer, and Rodney let out a sigh of relief. He was okay at parenting, but damn, if it didn’t terrify him sometimes trying to explain the hard stuff without scarring his son for life. Rodney had already had to live through it, his son didn’t need to, as well.

He finished his cereal and then said, “Hey, daddy?”

“Yeah?”

Joey looked up at him with his eyes that matched his father’s and said, “Can…can _you_ help me with my letter to Santa?”, to which Rodney felt a part of himself melt, despite not caring for the idea, and he nodded and said, “Of course, kiddo. You wanna start now?”

He nodded, his dirty blonde hair falling in his eyes, and then enthusiastically ran out of the room and Rodney could hear him pulling out the drawers to grab crayons and paper. Both of them had been trying to get him to use pencils and pens, but he didn’t want to. He preferred the crayons.

Joey came back into the room and put several pieces of white paper on the table and then scrambled up into his chair.

He grabbed the red crayon and painstakingly wrote out, _Dear Santa,_ in slanted, not quite right letters. Normally, Rodney would be all about correcting him, but he could already see John’s disapproving scowl in his mind’s eye, so he refrained. Instead, he pulled his chair closer and asked, “So…what do you want for Christmas?”

Joey’s nose scrunched up.

“I want…a football.” Rodney smiled as he carefully formed each letter of the word and then grabbed a brown crayon and drew a picture of a football next to it. “I wanna new race car,” he said second, spelling it with an ‘s’ instead of a ‘c’, and drawing it in blue. His tongue stuck out between his teeth as he wrote a third item, saying, “An’ I want pops to stop flying…” He drew a horribly inaccurate airplane and used the red crayon to draw huge ‘x’ across it.

Rodney’s brow furrowed. He then leaned in and asked softly, “Why do you want that, Joey?”

Joey shrugged in that way that only five-year-olds could and said, “’Cause. Uncle Ronon told me about how he used to fly planes and that sometimes he crashed…” Rodney’s eyes pointed to the ceiling at hearing that. He wanted to strangle that man. “…an’ how he sometimes had to be in danger to save people…”

His little voice trailed off, and Rodney scooted his chair closer and pulled him onto his lap and said, “Hey, buddy, don’t worry about that. You know he only flies jumpers, now, right?” Joey nodded. “And jumpers have invisibility shields on them, you know that, too.” He nodded again. “So…why’re you so worried?”

Joey shrugged.

Rodney thought about it for a moment and then said softly, “Is this why you’re not playing with your plane anymore?”

His son looked up at him with wide eyes and nodded.

“Yeah.”

Rodney let out a long sigh and simply said, “Oh, buddy,” and then tugged him a bit closer and hugged him tight. He looked down at Joey’s list and his thoughts went to John. He honestly couldn’t blame him for not wanting one of his dads to stop doing something as dangerous as that. He’d never say it in front of Joey, but Rodney also wasn’t all that thrilled whenever he went out, even if it _was_ in just a puddlejumper. John had a bad habit of getting into accidents.

They sat there a moment longer, and then Rodney squeezed him and suggested, “How about I write a list, too? That way, we can _both_ ask Santa to keep pops safe. How does that sound?”

Joey’s eyes brightened, and he nodded, and then he pulled out of his dad’s grasp and reached once more for the paper and crayons, grabbing several colors and handing them to Rodney. He took them with a smile and slid a sheet of paper in front of him, leaving Joey on his lap, and did the same as his son, drawing pictures next to his items.

The rest of the morning went well, and they managed to make it all the way through the afternoon before Joey got squirrelly and needed to run around. Feeling slightly desperate, he let him out into the long hallway that divided their living quarters from the rest of the base.

He ran himself ragged, playing with a ball that had come in on the last Daedalus shipment, and then Rodney dragged him back inside for lunch and then Joey collapsed on the couch with a massive book on Egypt in his hands. Unfortunately, on his last birthday, Dr. Jackson had showed up with General O’Neill, and they’d given him the book. Daniel had found it amusing when the kid’s eyes had lit up and had given Rodney a look, to which he’d rolled his eyes.

After about three hours, he got him to the table for dinner, and Rodney couldn’t help but notice how the boy’s eyes kept glancing towards the door.

Finally, about twenty minutes before Joey had to go to bed, John contacted them.

Rodney kept an eye on Joey as he played with John’s old yellow race car and said into the headset, “So, how the hell did you get back so soon? I thought Lorne was lost,” to which John replied, _“Yeah, well, not so much lost as they were_ very _drunk after quite the welcoming feast on P2X-547.”_ John snorted. _“Whatever was in the drinks had them hungover for a full day, and then they needed another day to recover after the hangovers. We got through and made it about two miles, and there they were, looking like death warmed over making their’ way back to the gate…”_

Rodney let out a throaty chuckle and cackled, “Oh, god, what I would _give_ to have seen that! I take it negotiations are going well, then?”

He could practically hear John’s nod over the comms as he said, _“Yep. We have lots of food coming our way, most of it looking a lot like stuff that we have back on earth, including something that looks and tastes very much like blackberries…”_

He let that linger, and Rodney immediately perked up.

“Did you say blackberries? Oh, you wouldn’t happen to be bringing any back, would you? Because it would be great if Joey could have blackberry pancakes for Christmas morning, the same way you used to when--”

He was cut off mid-ramble as the familiar vacuum-like sound of a door opening broke through the room. Before Rodney could even react, Joey was up and running, yelling, “Pops! You’re home!” and jumping into John’s arms. John caught him easily and then reached up and removed his ear unit and looked over at his husband.

Like a weight had been lifted, Rodney removed his own ear piece and stepped towards him, pressing a quick kiss to his lips, saving the good stuff for after Joey was put down for the night.

Luckily, the boy was exhausted, and he fell asleep quickly while John read him another chapter of Treasure Island.

Rodney watched from the doorway, and John was only barely halfway through when Joey’s eyes slipped close, and Rodney watched with a fond smile as John tucked their boy into bed. The instant the door closed, however, Rodney quickly dragged his husband down to their room and the second they were behind their own door, he pinned him to it with a meltingly hot, wet kiss.

“Oh, god, don’t ever do that again,” Rodney breathed out against his lips. “I don’t care if the world is about to end and you’re the only one who can save it, just don’t leave like that.”

He pressed a series of hot kisses down John’s neck, while the older man writhed and gasped out in a worried tone, “Rodney, what’s gotten into you? I was barely gone a day, and now you’re acting like…like I just came back from war! Seriously,” he added, while managing to get his hands on Rodney’s shoulders to push him back just far enough to look him in the eye. “What’s wrong? This isn’t like you, and you’re acting weird…well, more weird than usual. So, spill.”

He slowly pulled back and made his way on unstable knees over to the bed.

John cautiously approached him and sat down next to him so that his hand covered the scientist’s. He intertwined their fingers.

Finally, letting out a shaky breath, Rodney confessed, “Joey said something today. Also, I noticed something last night, too. He stopped playing with the jet plane in the tub. And, for his letter to Santa, one of the things on his list was that you don’t go flying anymore. Apparently,” he added, sounding irritated, “Ronon decided that telling a five-year-old about his daddy’s flying exploits was a good idea.”

“Oh, no…he probably thought all of the action would make Joey think I was cool or something,” John interjected in an exasperated tone.

Rodney scoffed.

“Yeah, well, not exactly. Instead, Joey’s now scared to death that something’s gonna happen to you while on a mission, and…well, it sorta got to me, too.” He swallowed and then continued. “I’m not gonna lie, it’s not the first time that it’s occurred to me, but most of the time I didn’t worry, you know? Because it’s you and you know what you’re doing, and you have a lot of experience under your belt, but then it sort of hit me that that’s never really seemed to make much of a difference when it comes to you, because you’re sort of a danger magnet…”

His voice almost cracked.

“I just…Now we have Joey, and I don’t think…god, I don’t think I can raise him on my own! You’re the one who lets him be a kid, you know? My Christmases were spent doing research papers and trying to impress my parents and one-up sister, and yours were spent with family breakfasts and actual presents and Santa Clause and--”

John cut him off with a soft kiss on his lips.

It stayed soft and then slowly heated up, at which point the airman slid a hand up along Rodney’s jaw and pulled back and murmured, “Hey, don’t worry so much. Like you said, I know what I’m doing out there. Also, I was gonna tell you this tomorrow for part of your Christmas present, but…I’ve put in my papers.”

Rodney gaped.

“You…you’re…?”

John nodded, his thumb absently rubbing Rodney’s stubble.

“Yeah. I am.”

He stared a moment longer…and then suddenly lunged at him and managed to drag the both of them until they were on the bed in a tangle of limbs, shirts torn off, and pants only halfway down each other’s thighs as Rodney fervently pressed his lips to his husband’s and stuck a hand down his boxers.

“Whoa, easy there…just wait a…ah!”

Rodney growled and got a firm hold on John’s half-mast erection and with the touch of someone very intimate with his body, brought him up to full-mast in just a few masterful strokes of his hand. He then licked a wet stripe up the older man’s neck and hissed, “Oh, I don’t wait, you should know that by now, John.” John let out a strangled gasp as Rodney squeezed with _just_ the right pressure, and then Rodney added in a throaty murmur, “Since you gave me one of my presents early, how about I return the favor?”

And then, before John could react, Rodney was sliding down his body, tugging his pants and boxers down the rest of the way, his lips trailing after his fingers.

Rodney wrapped his lips around his husband’s cock and slowly began to unravel him in his favorite way. John’s fingers snuck into his hair, tugging gently, not guiding him, just enjoying him, and Rodney grinned…and then sucked him in a bit deeper, letting out a low hum of contentment when he heard John grunt and his hips move under his other hand which held him down.

Slowly, but surely, he gave John the best blowjob he could, pulling out all the tricks that he had learned over their ten years plus of knowing each other carnally, and soon John was thrusting between his lips, unable to help himself.

Rodney savored the weight and taste of his husband’s cock on his tongue, and then felt and heard the familiar symptoms of his impending orgasm, and then he pulled back one last time, sucking the entire way…and then was thrilled when John’s flavor burst over his tongue. Feeling cocky, he squeezed him softly, milking John for all he was worth, his soft whimpers music to his ears, and then swallowed it all down…and then, Rodney felt himself coming, as well, and it was a shock to his system, as he’d barely been aware of the fact that he was even hard.

He slowly pulled back, being careful because he knew John was sensitive, and then fell to his side, just to the left of his husband on the bed.

“Uh…yeah…that was…yeah,” was all that John managed to get out and Rodney grinned. Yep. He still had it. They lay there a while, and then finally John moved to get up, saying, “As awesome as that was, babe, we gotta get our kid’s presents under the tree. Santa’s gotta make his appearance, after all,” and Rodney groaned.

“Fine, but you’re doing it. I have to change the comforter,” he retorted, and John snorted.

About twenty minutes later, the comforter was changed, and Rodney walked out into the main living area to see why John hadn’t come back to bed, yet. It shouldn’t have been taking him so long. He walked into the room where they had their makeshift tree (fake, of course), and he went still at the sight.

The lights on the tree sent soft white and gold light across the room bathing it in almost angelic glow…and John stood sat on the floor in the middle of it all, lights reflecting in the messy tufts of his hair while one hand lingered on one of the presents under the tree: the blue and gold wrapped one, with small octopus print on the blue paper and fishes on the gold; the one present that they’d picked out together for Joey, a telescope. His brow was furrowed in deep thought.

Swallowing, Rodney walked over.

He gently put a hand on his husband’s shoulder and softly asked, “What’s on your mind?”

John let out a long sigh.

“I should have retired a long time ago, Rodney. Why didn’t you ask me to?”

Sinking to his knees behind him, ignoring the way they ached when he did, he let out his own sigh and answered, “Like you would have listened to me?” John glanced up at him and snorted, and Rodney continued. “See, what I mean? I knew I’d never be able to change your mind about missions, no matter what I said. You love it too much, John. You care for your team and your people more than anyone I know, and I wasn’t going to pull you away from that and have you blame me later on. It was your decision.”

John slowly nodded and then leaned his head back against Rodney’s shoulder and said, “I’m sorry I made Joey worry about me.” He looked up at Rodney. “I’m sorry I made _you_ worry about me.”

Rodney shrugged and commented, “Don’t be, John. You do it for you. And, in case you’ve forgotten, I love you for who you are. I always have.”

They stayed that way for a long time…and then John’s eyes narrowed at seeing an empty coffee table on the far side of the room that made up their makeshift fake fireplace and held their stockings, and he said, “Hey…I’m not seeing any milk and cookies out for Santa. What am I supposed to have for a late-night snack?”

Rodney leaned in, his lips brushing against his husband’s ear.

“Well, I’ve already had mine, so if you wanna take _your_ turn…”

John looked over his shoulder and grinned.

 


End file.
